According to the Verge  the virtual vendetta kicked off with a mysterious outage on 2 March, leaving a gallery of generative images in the dark. Midjourney's sleuths pointed fingers at "botnet-like activity" from none other than Stability AI's employees, sparking an online uproar.

Nick St. Pierre, a Midjourney user spilt the beans on the behind-the-scenes skulduggery to Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, who replied on X. Allegedly, a Stability AI staffer was caught red-handed, trying to swipe a treasure trove of prompt and image pairs under the cover of night.

Midjourney declared an indefinite ban on all Stability AI employees, vowing to shut the door on any company caught wielding "aggressive automation" like a cyber weapon.

Stability AI's chief, Emad Mostaque, quickly retorted wondering how a mere two accounts could wreak such havoc. He insisted that Stability's hands were clean, hinting that if one of their own did trip the wires, it was a blunder, not a blitz.

David Holz, Midjourney's mastermind, chimed in, offering a breadcrumb trail of evidence to aid Mostaque's internal probe.